Wednesday, October 22, 2014

More and more people look to the internet for advice, how to better live their lives. I myself have often looked up information, such as how to self-diagnose illnesses and conditions. A few years ago, you may recall, I had big troubles with olfactory hallucinations. I dealt with every issue through internet advice, and now, at this very moment, I'm OK. Things smell pretty much like what they are.

Now, some advice I can offer has to do with spiders. I believe it's important to check for spiders, at least in most cases. My belief is that anything left lying around for very long will attract spiders. This is confirmed by experience, because I've seen spiders here, there, and everywhere. I have to figure they came upon the item (place) and simply moved in.

Today, to give an example of my caution, I was going to put on some shoes that I haven't worn for a month or more. The first thing I worried about was, Could there be spiders in them? The last thing I want is put my foot in just to be bitten by spiders, or even to crush them. I'm both careful and compassionate. So I pounded the shoes against something, to jar loose anything that might have been in there.

One thing I'm not cautious about is putting on my everyday shoes. Until now that hasn't seemed like an issue, although I may start now, because, Why wouldn't they move in to a pair of shoes overnight? If it's a month or so, that's only one day multiplied by 30 or so. And this could be the very day or night they discover your empties.

Recently, and this is uncharacteristic of me, I've had a spider hanging around the bathroom, and I've been letting it hang there. I've been watching it. It's been very peaceful, just quietly doing nothing, meditating perhaps. Day after day has passed. He's here, then tomorrow he's an inch to the left, etc. But he's stayed in the same place. Until the day before yesterday, when he was gone! Where'd he go? I may never know. Or I may find him, in a shoe or in the pocket of a shirt in my closet.

Or, let's just say he's real adventurous. Maybe he went into my dresser. With winter coming, what would be more comfortable than a closed dresser, in among the warmth of my underwear? That's where I'd go, maybe to the T-shirts instead, but I'm not a spider, who, likely don't have good reasoning powers when it comes to undies. Now I'll have to check there, and frankly I'll have to check everywhere, because even if I find this particular spider, who's to say that's actually him? And not another or another or another ... with the entire place riddled with spiders, rife with them!

They might be amongst the towels, in the bed, under my pillow, inside my pillow case -- they can be anywhere! I'll never be able to function, I can only imagine how bad it must be for people who live where there's also scorpions. They're not sleeping at all, just zombies staggering around, doing anything they can to get a moment's rest, turning things over, forever alert to the danger that spiders, snakes, scorpions, lice, roaches, and all the rest of nefarious nature is about to get them. All these terrible creatures are small but potentially dangerous, whether they're one ... or a million.

My advice, check for spiders. Once, twice, many times. Your life is hanging by a thread as it is. You can't allow anything else to happen.

Monday, October 20, 2014

Was Julius Caesar evil? I'm asking. For once in my life I'm not trying to conceal my ignorance. I know virtually nothing about him. I tried to read him in Latin one time. But not knowing Latin it was a tough go, and I made it up to about page 4. I know he traveled around doing stuff, to England, building walls, etc., but that's about it. And I read Shakespeare, the play where he got killed midway through.

My other exposure was the Adventures of Superman episode where he (apparently) comes back from the dead and appears to Perry White, who has a catchphrase, "Great Caesar's ghost!" The way that episode goes, if memory serves, is that it's just more Adventures of Superman two-bit thugs out to swindle Perry for a few bucks. I love the old Superman show, but there was never much there.

For my purposes today, Great Caesar is very evil, and his ghost, being him, is also very evil. And that's me saying it, who basically doesn't believe in ghosts. Well, I've had some scary moments in my life where I've imagined there were ghosts, like when I was a little kid. The last thing I wanted to be dealing with -- and my main Superman days were when I was little -- would've been Great Caesar's ghost!

It's easy to imagine the ghosts of the great -- the infamous great -- was being around. They were larger than life, therefore they're larger than death. They did their mean crap when they were alive, and now that they're dead, they still have the moxy-on-the-ball to get out there and do mean crap. I could probably toss out Hitler, since he always comes to mind when it comes to evil. And Julius Caesar, whose evil I'm not even sure about.

Whatever the reason, he's back with a vengeance, no doubt because he's dead and wants to share his misery with us. He's a ghost, that's one word for it, but he's also a shade, a somewhat freakier ghost. You see him when the light's right, and before you can get a handle on what you're seeing, he's gone!

What precisely he's sharing of his misery, I haven't had personal experience. Except I know it can't be good. Likely much of it's passive, afflicting the vulnerable. Like Perry White, who was very vulnerable in that episode. Tired, dragged-out, listless, with very little resistance. He needed Jimmy Olsen and Jimmy's pal, Superman, to help.

Monday, October 13, 2014

I have an attention span disorder when it comes to two things, honey and astronauts. I've found that both are easy to ignore, forget, and neglect. When it comes to honey, once it's in the cupboard, it's completely forgotten; I shouldn't have bought it. And the same thing holds for astronauts, but with more nuance. Theoretically I like astronauts as much as ever, but they're not seen as heroes anymore, or even given actual names that I hear, so they're out of the public eye, and definitely forgotten by me.

Consider what happens to honey once it's in the cupboard. The honey's forgotten, the astronaut's forgotten, the honey crystallizes and congeals, the astronaut dies in outer space. Of course it's six of one, half a dozen of the other, but presumably the astronaut's life means something, whereas the jar of honey arguably has less value. It's close.

I have to tell you -- so you understand -- that I honestly do love both honey and astronauts. As for honey, I love its looks, its consistency, its taste, and all the rest. I fully support any and all efforts to preserve, protect, and defend honey bees. I've given to understand that they're vital to our well-being, not just in the making of honey but for every other crop, from soup to nuts.

OK, picture me in the store when the spirit moves and I pick up a jar of honey. I think of what I'm going to do, have a tablespoon of honey everyday for my health and happiness. The first day I eat a tablespoon, the second day the same, the third day the same, the fourth day a butter and honey sandwich, and the fifth day something else. Then the sixth day comes and I'm out of town. The seventh day I'm still away. The eighth day I get back home and by then I've forgotten I even have honey. The next time I see the jar is a year and a half later, by which time it's crystallized and congealed and looks like hell. I've heard you can heat it up and make it edible again, but it seems like I've tried it a couple times and it's not the same. At this rate I won't buy another jar of honey for two years. Because I've already got six to eight jars of congealed honey junking up the cupboard.

I shudder, thinking of the poor astronauts, all whom I've also forgotten. It was fantastic when they were taking off, great when they achieved orbit, and wonderful when they went for a space walk. But coinciding (or not) with me going out of town, by the fourth or fifth day our beloved astronauts are on their own. I can only hope Houston hasn't forgotten them, but let's say they do ... How horrible it must be to be an astronaut, when it used to be such an enviable profession. I might've been an astronaut, but once again, as has happened so often in life, math was my downfall.

The astronaut, quite unbeknownst to me and everyone, is radioing earth on the fifth day: "Houston, Major Tom here, floating in my tin can." But all Tom hears in reply is static, crazy static, so crazy it's indicative of static quite on its own, as crazy as having a lost weekend. Like the honey jar, he's in the cupboard, forgotten. Everyone's out of town!

Fortunately, there's plenty of supplies on board for a long flight if need be. Just like the honey in the jar doesn't crystallize and congeal immediately. You could take it out of the cupboard a couple weeks later -- I suppose -- and it'd still be good. Similarly, the astronaut isn't in any huge danger, just so Houston remembers him reasonably soon. But once honey's forgotten, it's forgotten. And the same thing, I'm thinking, has to hold for astronauts. We may have a hazy recollection of launching them, but very soon the memory's drifted away.

Six months later, the honey looks like crap. And the astronauts are all dead, having etched on the dash panels some last message, such as, "Tell Laura I love her," a last provocative, plaintive message to someone, perhaps his wife, mistress, lover, or sister.

Monday, October 6, 2014

Like most guys my age (61), I have a messy history, especially in the area known as love. You think you have just the right gal, then it turns out she's not that great and you need another. Then another. Then another. It's a little principle I guess I'll call Live and Learn.

Then -- and this makes for a messy present as well -- they all have to still be alive, and as luck would have it, right in this area, so they (and I) can't help but run into each other from time to time. But I've gotten pretty good about sneaking around grocery stores, holding cereal boxes up to my head when I peek around corners, and keeping my eyes down in the checkout line. But accidents do happen.

It just so happened the other day I ran into my favorite ex-wife, the one I doted on, and she informed me that the four of them have been meeting. Apparently there's a website that helps ex-wives form their own club, along with bylaws, officers, new business, and, especially, old business. Letting old business resurface, and thereby giving them the opportunity to crap on me all over again -- their goal -- when the spirit moves. Little things, like stealing the ex-husband's paper, keying his car, all the way up to uber reputational despoilage.

But it was kind of good running into her, Polli Marie. Since I loved her most of all, until it all went to hell. My right eye has this thing where it involuntarily wanders -- which no one believes -- so they all got the wrong idea when I'm looking around. That I have an attitude, that I'm the roving type, etc.

My first three wives were all high school chums, who thought they wanted me. So I gave in, one at a time. I saw a huge benefit in that they were all big-boned women and obviously suited for service. I had the property here, my grandparents', and all the things from their successful household, wash tubs, clotheslines, dressing tables, and everything. So it was an easy choice to marry them and put them to work. Definitely freed up time for me and my wandering eye.

Of course I'd come home -- let's say after hunting and fishing -- and get meals from them (we were married sequentially, which should go without saying) -- and drop off fresh game and fish for them to clean. I thought it was a happy way to do things, but all I ever got was guff. Too much work, not enough sex, was their main complaint. But I could hardly stand the gamey smell. So we divorced: First Cindy Jane, then Linda Jane, then Myrtle Jane ... I told myself I had to get off the Jane gang. Three strikes, they're out!

Well, it just so happened that when Myrt and me were married, my wandering eye landed one day on the sexiest little so-and-so I'd ever seen thus far. Small-boned, lithe, flexible, not naturally given to the wash basin and game. And that's how I treated her, as though she were incapable of actual work. I made her my little queen. Had her propped up on the couch -- her throne -- with pillows and Grandma's old nicknacks for her palace.

I doted on that beautiful woman, Polli Marie. "O my Polli Marie, Polli Marie, Polli Marie!," her name still gives me the world's worst hots. She'd been a farmer's daughter, so I suppose she could've done some work. But you gotta understand, I'd already worked myself out of three wives, naturally I'm going the other way on my sweet, precious Polli Marie!

Then it happened, I came home one day laden with game and fish -- set to clean them myself, thanks to having been abandoned by the big-boned ones -- and Polli Marie was nowhere in sight. I checked her throne, I checked the other throne, everywhere, but she was gone! With my wandering eye, also a source of her grief, I scoured the town and finally found her applying for a job at the library. Of course I threw the book at her. I probably shouldn't have, but I did. No small-boned wife of mine will ever work! She left me and ever since I've been single.

Now that I hear they're caught up in this internet crap, forming an ex-wives club, I'm beside myself with grief. Frankly, if I can't have them -- three of them for work and the precious one on her throne -- I don't want to hear about them at all. (That's why I burnt the edges of the above graphic, symbolically burning away the past.) If, though, I do have to hear about them .... If I have to suffer the slings and arrows of this club ... I definitely hope Polli Marie is elected president. The others, with their big bones, aren't fit to lead, only to take orders from my queen, and work.